It’s Saturday, August 3, 2019, and time for Music in our Homeschooling Class and I would like to ask you to check out the Recommended Website PhysicsSongs.org I will be looking into this weekend. PhysicsSongs.org Age Range: 10-18 (Grades 5-12, with parental supervision) This website, hosted by Haverford College and maintained by a professor of physics, archives free songs about physics that help students remember critical concepts and formulas in a fun and entertaining way. This site was created for college students, but many songs will appeal to a younger range of ages, with parental supervision. As explained at the website, songs may activate a different part of the students’ brains that links into “the musical aspect of intelligence, helping many students to build a richer ‘knowledge tree’ relating to the concept being taught, and thus promoting better retention.” When you get to the site scroll down to “Physics songs and other resources” where you will find links to all kinds of physics songs. Don’t miss The Nano Song – the winner of the Nano Tube Contest sponsored by the American Chemical Society – under “Selected songs by other authors.” In the video, “Miss Glory” sings to Muppet-type puppets and explains nanotechnology. Here’s a snippet of the lyrics to give you an idea… Puppet: Miss Glory, what is nanotechnology? Miss Glory sings:Well, nanothings are way too small for you or I to see,But soon the world will change because of nanotechnology.A million nm that are lined up in a rowAre just about as long as a single flake of snowEven germs are several thousand nm’s tall,So when you hear that something’s nano, it’s very very small. Go to the site to hear the entire song – and we promise you’ll be singing along with the chorus in no time at all! There’s also a Physics Songs searchable database and a “Holiday Season” party sing-along sheet with “Physics Carols” in printer-friendly format. The site suggests many ways to use the songs including: Add song links to a course web page to “spice it up”!Sing the songs in class, or play recordings of them, or suggest that a musically-talented student sing them!Read the lyrics of songs in class as poems.Ask students to write their own songs, perhaps using some of those you can find through this page as inspiration.All of these ideas can be tweaked for use in the homeschool environment. NOTE: We couldn’t review ALL of the songs here. Since this was intended for college students (adults), PARENTS, AS ALWAYS, SHOULD PREVIEW THE MATERIAL TO DETERMINE SUITABILITY OF CONTENT FOR CHILDREN. |
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
